A Drive Through the Catskills

After staying at the KOA in Saugerties last night, my first stop of the day was just a few miles down the road to Mt. Tremper where the World's Largest Kaleidoscope was located. Built in 1996, it was formerly a 60-foot grain silo. The attached barn is now home to some very upscale stores such as a gourmet food shop, x-country ski shop, an antique store and a high-end women's clothing store. Next door is a lodge and hotel.

You step into the silo and lean against padded "benches," cocking your head back so you can look up through the center of the silo. The show runs every 15 minutes or whenever people show up to see it. For my showing, there were only three people, so the operator told us to lay on the floor instead of using the benches.

I did not bring my cell phone with me because I had no service and I did not bring my camera with me, so the two pictures below and the video are stolen from the Internet.

Kaleidoscope Video

From Mt. Tremper, I drove through Woodstock, the infamous site of the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969. The only problem is, Woodstock wasn't held in Woodstock; it was held in Bethel, NY -- 40 miles away. I thought since I was in Woodstock, maybe I could go to the original site. I could have, as it is now Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts, but I didn't want to drive an extra 40 miles out of my way. I was not old enough to go to Woodstock or appreciate it much, so it wasn't like I wanted to go there for nostalgic reasons.

After my disappointment in Woodstock, I moved on to my next disappointment: Phoenicia. Within the first couple of years of my marriage to Billy, we took his girls on a vacation through the Catskills and to Phoenicia. We rented tubes and floated down the Esopus Creek. Today, the creek was practically empty; no tubers, no kayakers, no canoeists.

This picture is downtown Phoenicia. I believe we stayed in the building to the left with the glassed-in porch. Today it is a real estate office and art museum.

Continuing on my voyage, I passed this little information kiosk up on a hill and saw a couple of women standing in it, so I turned around and went back to see what it was about. The park was Platt Rock. Zachary Platt, was a tanner, banker, farmer, and U.S. Congressman from 1837 to 1845, serving two terms within those years. A young sculptor by the name of Andrew Pearse met up with Platt and asked for a room to stay. Platt, being someone who did not believe in giving people something for nothing, asked Pearse what he could do to pay for his room and board. When Platt learned that Pearse was a stonecutter, he asked Pearse to sculpt a horse in the rocks of the mountain above his farm.

View from the kiosk overlooking the river.

 The horse was half a mile walk up the mountain from the information kiosk. I figured half a mile was no big deal if I took my time. The first rock had a carving of a poplar tree leaf.

The second rock was a chair or bench.

At the bench, the trail split. One leg went straight up; the other leg went to the right. There were no markings stating in which direction the horse carving was or how far it was, so I continued straight.

Somewhere up there in those rocks is a carving of a horse, right?

I walked and I walked and I climbed and I walked and I climbed to the top of that friggin' mountain and I still walked once I got to the top. I finally decided either Platt was a sadistic SOB to have some poor boy carve pictures in rocks all the way up here or I missed the horse somewhere. These are pictures from the cliffs that are only halfway up the mountain:

The problem with climbing a mile straight up a mountain is that you then have to climb DOWN that mile. I was already exhausted as it was. At this point, I wished I had a hang glider to jump off the cliff and glide down to the van. The trail was so steep and slippery with loose rocks, that I had to let Hope off her leash because I couldn't handle her and myself. The first thing she did once off her leash was run over to a cliff and peer over the edge. My poor heart.

There were parts of this trail that were so steep, I literally had to slide down it on my butt. I took baby steps most of the way down, made lots of stops to rest, and took my time thinking I didn't care how long it took me to get down off this mountain, as long as I did it in one piece.

I soon heard kids laughing. Once I returned to the rock chair, I met up with a family: husband, wife and their three boys. I asked them if they knew where the horse was because it certainly wasn't straight up the mountain. They didn't know, but since I said it wasn't straight up, they decided to take the trail to the right. I started heading down the hill to the parking lot, but then decided, I came this far, I might as well follow the family for a bit. It wasn't long before I heard the father say, "I found it." I am so glad I decided not to quit.

The carvings were fabulous. It was well worth the agony of the event. My total time there was over two hours. Back at the kiosk and parking lot, there was a mound with gravestone. I couldn't read too well what the gravestone said, but it looked to be the grave site of some of Platt's horses and dogs.

And the day isn't quite done yet. Driving through Stamford, I noticed scarecrows and flower pots every 100-feet or so through town. Here are three of them:

I stopped to get gas somewhere, jumped out of the van and realized I couldn't jump. I ache ALL OVER. Tomorrow I'm not going to be able to move. One last picture before I go: The trees are just beginning to turn in the Catskills. These are poplars at the edge of a swamp.

I arrived at Carol's just about 7 p.m. She ran a hot bath for me and I soaked my aching body. I'm still going to hurt in the morning and probably will for a few days after.